


Renegade Child

by Aenaria



Category: Captain America (Movies), Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies), doc - Fandom
Genre: Crack Crossover, Gen, I don't even know where this piece came from, I'm also playing fast and loose with Doctor Who canon, alien!darcy, more tags to be added later, treated all too seriously, when I can think of them, which is the beauty of fanfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-18 23:52:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3588603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aenaria/pseuds/Aenaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>One of the first questions out of Steve’s mouth when he finds out the truth - that she was born in another century, that she’s only partly human, that she’s got a time travel device of all things - is:</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>“Can you take me back?”</i></p><p> </p><p>Darcy's got plenty of secrets.  But of all the people she'd ever imagined spilling them to, Captain America didn't even make the list.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Unearthly Child

**Author's Note:**

> A/n: Like the tags say, this is a Doctor Who/MCU crossover piece. While the MCU canon is pretty standard up to CA:TWS, I will fully admit that I am playing very fast and loose with DW canon here. Especially as certain parts of the characters and background events here are pulled from the DW tie-in novels, which some people consider questionable canon. What I ended up doing is picking and choosing bits that worked for me, and hopefully weaved them into a coherent storyline. I hope. *crosses fingers and toes*
> 
> This story is also basically going to be the prologue to a much larger universe. I’m not sure how many stories it’s going to consist of, or what’s going to be in all of those stories, but I’ve got an idea of what’s going to happen and I’m just hanging on for the ride. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy it!

One of the first questions out of Steve’s mouth when he finds out the truth - that she was born in another century, that she’s only partly human, that she’s got a  time travel device of all things - is:

 

“Can you take me back?”

 

Darcy shakes her head with the saddest sort of a grin on her face.  “It doesn’t work like that, Cap - Steve,” she says, waving her hand around at the walls of the Smithsonian’s exhibit, proudly proclaiming the return of Captain America to the living world.  “You’re here and now, and you’ve already - obviously - affected this timeline.  And once that happens…”

 

“I’m stuck,” Steve says, eyes wandering over the pictures and posters and videos that tell tales about seventy years in the past, at least according to the calendar.  But for him it’s only been a couple of years, Darcy knows.  The wounds are still fresh, and it’s not at all hard to see that.

 

Darcy tucks her arm into his and leans into Steve’s side.  “Yeah.  I only know some of the technical mechanics of it, and what I do know is confusing as all hell, but you going back would lead to very bad things.  Like universe ending grade bad.”  She squeezes his bicep, and looks up at Steve, who’s still halfway lost in memories.  “It’s not that bad here in this century though,” she says.  “I got used to it.”

 

Steve looks down at her, a wry smirk twisting up his mouth.  “I thought you said you grew up here and now.”

 

“Well, partly,” Darcy says, shrugging.  “You got time for a story?”

 

\----------

 

Of all of the people Darcy Lewis - born Daria Calliope Campbell deep in the heart of the 22nd Century - had imagined spilling her entire hidden history to, Captain America hadn’t even made the list.  

 

She’d met Steve Rogers a handful of times before this, when he had stopped in London to check in with Thor in the midst of his search for his supposedly best friend turned brainwashed assassin turned savior (which sounds even more implausible than her own story, but Darcy’s learned by now that truth is stranger than fiction and you just can’t make this shit up).  He was always polite to her, always cordial, but there was never any deeper connection there.  Which was more than fine with Darcy; knowing Thor’s more than enough to fulfill the superhero quota in her life.

 

Until the day when some mechanical baddies decided to take out a building in central London, right next to the hardware store Jane had sent her to pick up supplies to repair some of her equipment.  She’d corralled Steve into coming with her, claiming she needed some muscle to help lug back all of the tools (because dammit, they were heavy, and super strength is so not her thing).  And as the building wall next to them starts to rain down like some marble waterfall, out of sheer instinct Darcy grabs Steve’s wrist and pounds a couple of buttons on her wrist transporter, sending them five minutes into the future and landing them in an alley across the street from the now pulverized building.  Once Steve beats back the dry heaves that are the natural result of time travel without a capsule, he gives her the most incredulous look and says, “What the hell was that?”

 

Darcy opens her mouth to explain, but she’s interrupted by the screams and sirens coming from the wreckage across the street.  “Help them first,” she says, waving a frantic hand in that direction, “then I promise I’ll explain everything afterwards.”

 

But there’s no time for explanations, not right then.  Steve’s busy with helping the survivors while Jane’s called in for an emergency consult (which turns out to be a false alarm, but she can’t blame MI5 for covering all their bases), and by the time the dust has cleared Steve and Sam are already on the trail of the latest Bucky sighting.

 

‘I haven’t forgotten,’ she later e-mails Steve, hoping that he’ll see her message.  ‘I’ll be in Washington DC in a month because Jane’s got a presentation at Culver University.  If you still want, we’ll get together then and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.’  She’s not quite sure why she reaches out to him; it’s not like she owes him an explanation.  But maybe she needs the catharsis in her own head, to unburden her mind of all of the weights of her past, for a little while at least.

 

Or something like that.  She’s never been the best at figuring out her emotions.  They can get very messy if she’s not careful.

 

To her immense surprise, Steve e-mails her back with a time and place, asking her to meet him.

 

“So what’s your story?” Steve asks as they sit down on the benches in one of the little film booths with war footage playing in the background.  It’s dark in there, with the grainy film the only light around and casting eerie shadows across their faces.  But for some reason it makes it easier for Darcy to tell her story.  

 

Darcy leans back against the wall, staring up at the low ceiling, and begins to speak.

 

\----------

 

Darcy doesn’t remember the century that she was born in, not clearly at least.  But her earliest memories are filled with familiar faces around her, crumbling buildings being rebuilt after being broken down by unearthly invaders, technology that works with the wave of a finger or the blink of an eye, multi-dimensional holograms that are beyond real, and the glittering lights of a 22nd century night.  She thinks she had a few older siblings at one point, friendly faces that stop by to visit every so often and bring her shiny treats and trinkets that she stashes away in her special backpack.  But once they run away from home in the middle of the night as the world starts burning up around them once more, her mum and dad rarely, if ever mention them.  It’s safer that way.

 

“They shouldn’t be back,” she recalls her dad saying when she’s six years old, peering down through the staircase railings as her parents talk on the floor below.  “But they are, and they’re after you, Susan.  Our only option is to run away.  There’s nothing cowardly in that, not when we’ve got the kids to protect.”

 

She remembers her mum nodding in agreement as she bites her nails down to the quick.

 

Two days later, before Darcy’s even got a chance to say good-bye to any of her Reception classmates, all of their valuables are packed up and she wakes up somewhere in the United States in the late twentieth century.

 

\----------

 

No, scratch that.  Her earliest memory is of running into her parents’ bedroom in the middle of the night as thunder and lightning wreaks havoc outside.  She crawls into bed with them, and lays her head down on her mother’s chest.  The steady beats of her mother’s hearts beneath her ear is a comfort that lulls her back to sleep.

 

\----------

 

Her father’s always been old in her eyes, just as her mother’s always been young.  She has another older brother by about three years called Alex.  He’s the one who had given her her name as well.  His three-year-old mouth couldn’t pronounce Daria without mangling it, but Darcy was far easier to pull off, and so Darcy she became.  Obviously, it had stuck.  It’s easier to think of herself as Darcy anyway; it’s quite the suitable name for an earthly child.  She and Alex were the late marriage surprises, coming along well after her parents were told they’d not be able to have biological children.  Darcy’s never seen her father without salt and pepper hair, and yet her mother...her mother always looks like she’s barely passed twenty years old.  

 

She thinks this is normal until she starts hanging out with more of the students in her new schools, visiting their homes, watching their parents help out at class parties and on trips.  There’s something about her mother that’s just...different.  But that’s par for the course for the Campbell family...now known as the Lewis family.  Darcy doesn’t know anyone else who’s traveled in time like her family has, and if she can handle that dealing with a name change is easy-peasy.

 

\----------

 

On Darcy’s ninth birthday, when her father is dealing with an illness that not even her mother’s genius brain can fight against, they all go out on a picnic to the beach.  Between the wind and the sand and the waves, Susan tells her children the full story of her life, where she was born, on a planet far off and slightly outside of time, why she ran away from them in the first place with her dear Grandfather, how old she really is, when she’d first met David, and why they had to run away in time once more.

 

“That’s impossible, mom,” Darcy says, tearing into her sandwich with relish.  Peanut butter and strawberry jelly’s always been a favorite, and it’s easier to focus on the sandwich than on the fact that her mother’s just told them that they aren’t fully human.  

 

Susan just smiles at her.  “Well, sometimes I like to do six impossible things before breakfast, so you just never know.”  She pours herself a cup of tea from the thermos, steam curling up into the cool, autumn air.  “Why do you think you’re more advanced than your schoolmates and can pick up your subjects that much faster than them?” she asks Darcy and Alex.

 

“Because we’re smart?” Alex says.  He knows the stories better than Darcy does, his memories of the past in the 22nd century much clearer thanks to age, but he still can’t resist being a smart ass.  

 

Susan rolls her eyes at her kids.  “Because your brains are different.  They’re wired to work faster, more efficiently than a human’s.”

 

Darcy had hoped that being a time-travelling alien meant she was going to end up with some cool superpowers.  Being smarter than everyone else in her fourth grade class just got her picked on something awful.  “Great, so we’re uber-dorks,” she mutters into her peanut butter sandwich.

 

Her father just laughs at this, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close.  “Never change, Darce,” he says.

 

\----------

 

“Dad died, not long after that,” Darcy says to Steve, her hands wrapped around her mug of coffee as they sit at a little outdoor cafe a short distance away from the Smithsonian to continue their conversation.  It’s cool enough outside that there’s not many people on the back patio, giving them privacy for a conversation that wouldn’t even be believed anyway.

 

Steve nods, fiddling with a stray spoon.  “You got to know him, at least.”

 

“Yeah, but it’s never enough time.”  She shakes her head, snorts ruefully.  “Girl with a time machine and she doesn’t have nearly enough time in the world with her dad.”

 

“My mom died when I was eighteen,” Steve says.  “I know the feeling.”  Darcy nods in agreement, then lets out a weak chuckle.  She shoves her hand into her hair, pushing it back from where the wind keeps blowing it back into her face.  “This is one hell of a morbid conversation for a first date,” Steve continues, though the smirk playing around the corners of his mouth implies some sort of mirth.

 

Darcy's not quite sure what to make of that.  “Who says this is a date?” she fires back, the innocent confusion written clear across her face.  

 

\----------

 

Along with their regular schooling, Darcy’s mother also educates her children on a number of topics that most people on earth haven’t even dreamed of: alien languages, multi-dimensional and temporal physics, sciences and histories that are so far beyond what anyone else knows that it leaves Darcy feeling a bit lost, like her head’s overloaded with information nobody else would understand.  But these are the things Susan studied in school, on that planet so very far away, and she’s determined that her children know as much as she can give them, even if it’s only a mere fraction of the knowledge her people possess.

 

It’s easier to play dumb in high school, she learns.  She plays up the pop cultural aspects of her personality to fit in with others (and Darcy does genuinely like the pop culture stuff - it’s a world she knows and is a part of, just like almost every other teenager in the early 21st century), and when all they see is tits and hair and glasses and a bubbly personality, she can pretend she’s not some alien freak genius.

 

This isn’t the best of habits for her to follow, but it takes her all the way through college, to her relationship with Jane, and beyond, until Steve finds out the truth.

 

\----------

 

One day, in the summer when Darcy’s sixteen years old and discovering the world through the fresh eyes of a teenager, everything changes.  Susan’s face is pinched and pale as she sits Darcy and Alex down at the kitchen table for a long, serious talk.  There’s a war happening, way off in the universe, farther off than any planet Susan’s ever taken her children to for a family vacation.  Their home planet, the one with the unpronounceable name that they’ve never even been to, is at the center of the entire mess.  And Susan is heading home to do her part.

 

“Can’t we come with you?” Alex asks, nineteen years old and full of fire, ready to find something to fight for.  “These people are our family too; we should be able to help.”

 

“No,” Susan says, shaking her head sharply.  “It is my job to keep you safe, and I can’t do that in the middle of a war zone.”

 

Darcy just tunes out after that, unsure what to think.  She doesn’t want her mother to go, of course she doesn’t.  But she can see the stubborn, firm look in her eyes (a look that Darcy knows she’s inherited as well...Lewises are a damn stubborn people) and knows that no amount of begging and pleading will stop her from going off to war.

 

“I wish I didn’t have to do this,” Susan says later that night as she, Darcy, and Alex are curled up in the big bed together, taking what little comfort they can before the world falls apart.  “But if we lose, the entire universe...multiple universes will fall.  I can’t risk that.  And I can’t risk losing you.”

 

“I love you, mama,” is all that Darcy says, resting her head on her mother’s chest and listening to the way her hearts thunder beneath the skin for the last time.

 

\----------

 

A week after Susan leaves a lawyer shows up at their house with a couple of boxes and a sheaf of papers for Darcy and Alex to sign.  At the end of it all, Darcy’s guardianship has been transferred to her brother until her eighteenth birthday, she and Alex now own the little house they grew up in as well as a few other family properties, and the cars have been signed over into their names.

 

“And it looks like we’ve each got a trust fund that’ll last each of us about three hundred years, if we’re careful,” Alex says, flinging a manila folder across the couch at Darcy.  She ignores it, however, in favor of the boxes on the coffee table that she’s rooting through.

 

“Huh.”  Darcy pulls out a wide leather wristband that almost looks like a watch, but when she flips up the metal latch it reveals a far more complex computer system than she was expecting.  It’s not an unfamiliar sight, though, and she hands the second one in the box to Alex.  “Looks like Mom left us a couple of transports,” she says.  Both of them know how to use the time travel devices; they’ve been trained in how to use them since they were old enough to stand, to use them to cut through space and time, and get themselves out of a pinch by jumping just a few minutes into the future if necessary.

 

Alex flips his back and forth between his hands a couple of times.  “Think she wants us to follow her with these?”

 

Darcy shakes her head.  “Mom wouldn’t have left us a shitton of cash if she wanted us to follow her.  These are for emergencies only.”

 

The next items out of the box are a couple of slim tablets, and Darcy starts them up with a flick of her finger.  “Huh,” she says again when the holographic projection rises up from the screen, and an index begins to roll past her eyes.

 

“And what’s that supposed to be?”  Alex leans over to take a better look at the scrolling lines of text.

 

“Basically?” Darcy says, the grin spreading across her face, “the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, so to speak.”  She shakes her head fondly.  “I think Mom wants us to travel instead.”

 

“Well, she always did say that wanderlust ran in the family.”

 

\----------

 

Alex sticks around until Darcy heads off for college.  She couldn’t ask for a better big brother; he had her back at all times and gave her a kick in the ass if she needed it.  On the day she moves into the dormitories at Culver University, Alex helps her get set up and then takes off on his own adventure through the stars with a backpack, his transporter, and the guide.  

 

The transporters come in pretty handy as communicators, however, and the text messages between the two are frequent.  Alex is the only one who understands how out of place Darcy feels sometimes, with one foot on the earth and the other in the stars, and it’s nice to have someone who knows what else is out there in the universe.

 

But Culver helps her find her place in the world.  She likes the knowledge that studying political science affords her, of how the governments of this world work together and separately to keep everything nominally running.  She likes having the opportunity to study whatever strikes her fancy, from art to literature to psychology of the human mind.  And even though she’s not quite like the rest of these humans, for the first time in a long time she feels like she’s got a place to belong.

 

Darcy still keeps her advanced brain hidden though, if only to make sure that she doesn’t call any undue attention to herself.  In college genius is a gift, and it would catch the notice of a lot of people...and possibly some governments who would lock her away in a lab if they discovered her alien half (medical waivers and forged paperwork can only go so far from keeping the school’s Health Services department from finding out about her second heart).  All right, maybe she’s watched too much television in her formative years and now has an ingrained paranoia about getting found out.  Better safe than sorry.

 

\----------

 

Then one day...one day it’s like there’s a sudden explosion in her head.  The pain’s bad enough to stop Darcy dead in her tracks as she walks through the quad, collapsing on a bench until her racing hearts have calmed down enough for her to breathe again.  She gets it together enough to make her way back to her dorm and faceplant on the bed, willing her body to get itself together.

 

It’s only then that she realizes that the low grade hum that’s been in the back of her brain her entire life, that feeling of connection that there’s others like her out there in the universe, is suddenly gone.  Like with a snap of the fingers all of those other beings that were floating at the edge of her consciousness have just disappeared, like they never existed to begin with.

 

Alex shows up a few hours later, letting himself into her room and curling up on the bed with her.  Even though they’ve still got each other, they’re still more alone than they’ve ever been in their short lives.

 

\----------

 

“I think that was the war ending,” Darcy says to Steve as they sit on the front stoop of his apartment building, looking up at what few stars can poke their way through the haze of Washington DC’s street lights.  She’s been talking for hours and her voice is hoarse, but she couldn’t imagine stopping, not until she’s spilled out all these little details she’s been hiding for all these years.  

 

“They ended the war, but at what cost?” Steve questions, bringing her out of her memories and back into the here and now.

 

“Yeah,” Darcy nods, tucking her hands into the ends of her sleeves.  “I think they’re all gone now; I can’t feel any of them out there at all anymore.  S’just me and Alex left, and it’s so fucking lonely.”

 

“I know the feeling.”

 

Darcy’s run out of explanations for the night.  There’s still more of her story to tell, but her soul hurts too much to go on for now, like it’s frayed and unraveling and needs to be put back together before she can go on.  Steve’s surprisingly understanding, however (she shouldn’t be surprised though, not really.  If anyone knows what it’s like to lose everything in the space of a heartbeat it’s the man who closed his eyes and woke up seventy years in the future).

 

They agree to meet up again the next afternoon, after she’s finished helping Jane with that day’s presentation prep.  “Do you want me to escort you to the closest Metro?” Steve offers.  

 

She’s got to take the train to get back to where she’d parked the car she’d borrowed from Jane (under the guise of needing to handle an errand for her brother in D.C. that day - Jane doesn’t know about Darcy’s history and she’d like to keep it that way, even if it means telling her a white lie about meeting up with Steve), but she declines with a smile and a shake of her head.  “I’ll be okay,” she says, shrugging.  “I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeves just in case.”

 

She glances back at Steve, who’s leaned back against the steps and is staring up at the night sky.  Darcy can’t help but think yet again that he still looks lost, but there’s a lingering curiosity there that’s new.  He looks over at her, shooting her an awkward grin and giving her a small wave.  

 

Darcy waves back, feeling a sudden swooping in her stomach that’s entirely unfamiliar.


	2. Small, Quiet Moments

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to say this last time, but thank you to Meri, Rainne, and Carrie for looking over the original version of this story and putting up with my neediness. You all rock, m'dears. Also, I have to give Sarah/lady-cheeky credit for coming up for the location of Culver University and setting it in Fredericksburg, VA.

 

Steve drives out to the university the next afternoon, meeting her in one of those little cafes that dot downtown Fredericksburg.  It’s a quieter little tea house that Darcy’s always favored, tucked away down a narrow side street with drinks that remind her all too much of the teas her mother used to brew at home.  And not too busy in the afternoons, which will hopefully afford them at least a modicum of privacy.

 

“So, next question,” Steve says as they settle in at a table in the corner, hidden halfway by a folding screen on one side and a potted palm on the other.

 

“Fire away.”

 

“Did you ever use that, what did you call it, the transporter, to travel...off world?”  He hesitates over the last term, like he can’t quite wrap his brain around it, even though Steve’s met Thor and chased aliens back to their home dimension through that gaping hole in the New York sky.

 

Darcy huffs out a slight laugh.  “Hell yes.  I took a lot of weekend trips in college.  Definitely much more fun than getting drunk with frat boys.  Which I also learned the hard way does not mix well with my unique biology,” she says, wincing at the memories.

 

“Go anyplace interesting?”  She suspects that Steve’s trying not to look excited about the possibility of seeing all of these alien worlds that are out there.  But he’s not doing the best job of it (frankly, it’s rather endearing and kind of cute).

 

“It’s all interesting, really.  Everything’s so different from home out there.  That doesn’t mean that Earth is boring, not at all.  Earth is pretty cool too.  But in most cases it’s very obviously not Earth, if that makes sense,” Darcy says.

 

“You know, it kinda does,” Steve says, shaking his head with a small smirk.  “So what was your favorite place?”

 

“There was this one planet, called Woman Wept.  I met Alex there once, Mum had mentioned it to him ages ago.  The temperatures there drop so rapidly that even the ocean waves will freeze while they’re still moving, and you can climb up them like mountains at night...and it’s probably not a good idea to mention a planet full of ice to you, of all people, is it?”

 

“Don’t worry about it.  I’m not going to have a breakdown just because someone mentions ice.”

 

Darcy nods once, quickly.  “Good to know.  In any case, it was pretty amazing.  I recommend it.”

 

One eyebrow twitches up towards Steve’s hairline.  “Well, you’re the girl with the traveling machine.  You’re gonna have to drive.”

 

“Is that hypothetical or an actual proposition there?” Darcy says, leaning back in her chair to give him a playful look and cross her arms over her chest.  All right, she’s definitely enjoying the banter now, falling into the rhythm and giving as good as she’s getting.  She hopes.  

 

The smirk on Steve’s face is now a full blown grin.  “We’ll see when you’re done with your story.”

 

“You’re such a tease, Captain Rogers.”

 

“Moving on,” Steve says, shaking his head as if he can’t quite hold back the amusement, “meeting Thor must have been a pretty big shock for you then.”

 

“That’s an understatement.  I’ve met aliens before, but usually not on Earth.  Actually, never on Earth.  Family doesn’t really count.”  She’s had plenty of experiences with aliens on other planets (and sometimes having to run away from them because the guide isn’t always correct when it comes to cultural niceties), but more often than not she’s got to go to them.

 

Thor, of course, is the exception.

 

\----------

 

She applies for the internship with Dr. Jane Foster on a whim.  It’s true she needs the internship to complete her graduation requirements, but the thought of spending four months helping out some politician on Capitol Hill doesn’t exactly appeal to her.  Darcy likes studying political science, but she’s always got one foot in the stars and helping out an astrophysicist for those months gives her a feeling that hasn’t been there since her mother went off to war.  Jane is nothing like Susan, however.  Jane is all about the science and Darcy loves that about her.

 

But Darcy can’t help but feel that sometimes she’s cheating with this scientific experimentation.  Susan had taught her and Alex about astrophysics, taught them things that were so far beyond Earthly knowledge about the way the universe works.  She had also drilled into them the ideas of fixed points in time and non-interference - that there are certain events in the universe that have to happen exactly as is, and as much as they want to help and make things right with their transport devices at hand, they can’t always.

 

“You don’t need to go to the extremes that our people went through to avoid messing about in time and space,” Susan had said once.  “Sometimes a little interference is necessary and good.  But if you pay attention to the flow of time, the way it feels inside you, the way it strikes all of your senses, you’ll know that there are certain events and occurrences that you can’t change.  It’s not fair, and it’s not always right, but the universe doesn’t care about that.  The universe just wants to make sure that everything happens at its time.”

 

So Darcy sits back and watches as Jane scans the stars and does her research, history unfolding at her very fingertips.  Rarely, very rarely when Jane gets so stuck she can’t find her way out of a hole, Darcy will tinker with her devices or adjust a mathematical formula for her.  Not too much - never too much, really - but just enough to make sure Jane ends up on the right path again.  Everything inside of Darcy screams out that Jane is going to be the one to make these wonderful, pioneering discoveries for humanity, and she wants to make sure that happens for her.

 

She’s still used to keeping her brain tucked away, in any case.  And honestly, it’s comfortable for her, and makes the world a hell of a lot easier to navigate.  So if Jane thinks she’s a kindhearted yet slightly dippy political science major turned intern, well, she’s okay with that.

 

And then Thor comes crashing into their world, making things even more insane than they already are.

 

The pattern that Thor’s landing leaves behind is vaguely familiar.  When she runs the sneaky picture she’d snapped at the site through the guide after they drop him off at the hospital, she learns that the distinctive landing design originates from a planet called Asgard.  Asgardians aren’t quite as insular as Susan had always said their home planet was, but it’s rare that they venture beyond any of what they call ‘The Nine Realms’.  One of which is Earth, apparently, which suddenly puts Norse Mythology in a whole new light for her.

 

Darcy can’t think over this in too much detail, however, as SHIELD comes swooping in to steal all of Jane’s research and she becomes far too occupied with staying below the radar than to read up about Asgard.  There’s nothing on the surface that would give her away as inhuman, and she has to make sure that all they see is a college girl taking an out of town internship for a few months for a little adventure.  Between her stellar acting skills and a little device handed down from Susan called a perception filter, she weathers the storm with all of her secrets intact.

 

\----------

 

Steve’s eyes rake over her, taking her in with an intent stare.  “All right,” he says, “I can’t tell that you’re anything but human just from looking at you.”

 

“Well, I am half human on my father’s side,” Darcy replies with a toss of her hair.  She’s proud of that human part, really.  Humanity brings a lovely depth of emotion and passion that it sounds like her mother didn’t really have before she left their home planet.  Even if those emotions still confuse the hell out of her sometimes, but she won’t admit that one out loud.  “It’s a good combination.”  She shoots him a grin.  “And there are definitely things about me that give me away, but you’re going to have to work for those.”

 

“Ah.”

 

Darcy picks up her tea and takes a sip, feeling it warm her all the way down to her toes.  “Anyway, I didn’t get to do too much more research about Asgard because Loki decided to be a dick and send his Destroyer to wreck Puente Antiguo.  Thor went off to fight and I...saved a dog,” she finishes with a wry grin and a shake of her head.

 

“Even the little guys deserve to be saved,” Steve says with an offhanded shrug.  “I’m sure the dog was grateful for the help.”

 

“Yeah, the family that adopted him after spoils the hell out of the little furball.”

 

The conversation fades out for a couple of minutes after that as they tear into the still warm pastries on the table.  The honey glazed one is especially good, Darcy thinks, liking the way it slip-slides on her tongue.  It’s one of those alien things that aren’t obvious at first, the way her senses are slightly heightened beyond that of a full human’s, and eating can either be a very delightful or an incredibly horrid experience.  Luckily the pastries fall on the ‘oh my god so good’ side of the spectrum.

 

Steve puts his cup down with a clink, and he clears his throat softly.  "So could Thor tell when he met you that you were more like him than everyone else around here?" he asks.

 

"Can you tell?  With me and Thor?" Darcy fires back with a shrug.  "This form is a popular one throughout the universe."  She holds up her entirely all too human looking hands, staring at them as if she can't quite connect them to her body.  "My mom always said that humans looked like us, you know.  That we were there first and everyone else was modeled off of our genetic patterns.  But I don't know for sure.  That could just be her hometown pride talking, so to speak."  She shrugs again, and, feeling rather silly, spreads the fingers of her right hand in a classic Vulcan salute.  The man out of time might not get it, but she mentally pats herself on the back for the in-joke.

 

"Besides, the similarities in form make it much, much easier for when the humans venture out into the universe and start dancing," Darcy finishes up with an impish grin.

 

Steve's eyebrow arches up, questioning, even though she’s sure he can figure out the innuendo in that one.  "Dancing, huh?"

 

"Yeah, apparently you humans are very good at it.  So to speak.  But even tens of millions of years in the future humans are still out there in the universe, mingling and dancing and just thriving.  It’s pretty awesome," Darcy says.

 

“So what does happen to us in the future?” Steve asks.

 

Darcy frowns, just slightly.  “Are you talking about you and me specifically or humanity in general?”

 

He pauses briefly, eyes going distant as he mulls over the question.  “I’m not sure,” he eventually says.

 

“Me neither.”  Darcy shrugs, fiddling with the last few bits of her pastry.  “Theoretically, yes.  It wouldn’t be hard at all to skip a few millennia ahead to find out what happens.  But then you risk running into a paradox - you learn something you don’t like in the future and try to go back to change it, and then all of a sudden the sky’s purple and aliens are attacking when they shouldn’t be.”  She pops one final bite of honey drenched dough into her mouth and chews quickly.  “You ever see the movie  Back to the Future ?”

 

Steve shakes his head.  “Can’t say I have.  Is it worth watching?”

 

“Definitely.  Aside from being an awesome movie, it’ll also show you a paradox in action.  A Hollywood version of it, but close enough.”

 

“I’ll add it to the list.”

 

History’s always changing, is what she really wants to say.  Something that could have been definite, certain fact one day could become just a legend the next, a fairy story that no one’s sure actually happened.  Close examination of the time streams proves this, but Darcy’s never been inclined to look to closely.  She’s not sure she wants to know what she’d see there either.  It’s also the exact reason why she can’t send him back to the 1940s either, but it hurts to tell Steve that, at least right now.

 

So much for being brave today, Darcy.

 

Darcy shakes her head, brushing the morbid thoughts aside.  “In any case, we know full well that we can totally handle it if bad aliens come here when they’re not meant to.  And you’ve got to get a lot of the credit for that one,” she says, nodding pointedly in Steve’s direction.  “At least this time people actually admitted that aliens really attacked, instead of collectively brushing it off as hallucinogens in the water.”

 

“Really?  That actually happened?”

 

“Look up aliens in London in the 21st century online and you’ll see a wide variety of conspiracy theories.  Not sure why they like to focus on London so much, but there you have it.”

 

“Huh.”

 

“It is strange, isn’t it?” Darcy says with a grin that implies she finds it more amusing anything else.  “It’s like the out of town relatives came for a visit, and made a total mess of everything before they decided to bail.”

 

Steve shrugs, giving her a look combined with a small, impish smile.  “It’s no stranger than aliens in New York, really.”

 

For some reason this strikes Darcy as incredibly funny and she bursts out into a fit of giggles, bending low over the table until her hair spills across it.  Maybe that’s what happens when you lay yourself bare, Darcy thinks, that everything becomes overly bright and hysterical and the best thing to do is let it all out while it’s still bubbling up.

 

Or maybe she’s just cracked up.  That’s also an entirely legitimate option.

 

“Man, I haven’t laughed like that in a long time,” she says once the giggles have petered out and she peels herself up off the table.  Darcy slouches back in her chair, brushing her hair out of her face.  “I don’t think you meant that to be _that_ funny, did you?”

 

“Even so, I can’t complain about the outcome.  It’s, uh...it’s a good look for you.”

 

Darcy’s never been inclined to blushing, a quirk in her not-quite-human biology, but she could swear that her cheeks turn bright red at that one line.  

 

\----------

 

“The future isn’t determined by big moments,” Susan tells a thirteen-year-old Darcy who’s taking a break from reading a paper about Einstein’s twin paradox.  The paper was Susan’s assignment, of course.  Seventh grade science class has nothing on what her mother will assign on any given day.

 

“Then what does?” Darcy asks, rolling over on the purple comforter and staring up at Susan, leaning against the dresser by the windows.  “Is there any sort of pattern to determine why certain things happen when they do?”  She’s not quite sure how they ended up on this topic, but that’s not unusual when she and Mum start talking.  They have some of the best conversations that way.  

 

Susan looks out the window, the light catching her in just the right way so that her alienness becomes even more apparent, at least to Darcy’s eyes.  Mum looks beautiful like that, she thinks.  “That’s also the beauty of the future, that even within what predictable patterns we can see, there is still a thread of chaos that can change things in a nanosecond.  You can have every algorithm to predict events laid out precisely, and yet a butterfly will flap its wings on the other side of the world, or a baby will laugh at just the right moment, or even a well aimed smile at a certain person will set the universe spinning in a different direction.  We’ll cover this in more detail once we get into parallel universes, but that’s the basic gist of it.  The future that you can glimpse is never guaranteed, and the options are infinite.”

 

Darcy arches her eyebrows at her mother.  “So even me asking you this question right now could change the fate of the entire universe?”

 

“Precisely.”

 

“I don’t think I’m going to speak again, just so you know.”

 

“I think that if you never said anything, this universe would be an incredibly boring place.  Of course, I may be a tad biased,” Susan says dryly, shoving her hands in her trouser pockets.

 

“Thanks, Mum,” Darcy says with a smirk. 

 

Susan smiles back, then cocks her head at the door.  “Come on, let’s have a tea break and talk about chaos.”

  
Years upon years later, Darcy won’t be able to tell exactly where her imagined future spun off into what became her reality, but she suspects it’s the small, quiet moment when Steve gave her that little smile that speaks of the best sort of trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This whole story is really like a prologue to a longer universe that's been brewing in my head for a while. I've already got a good chunk of the next story in the series written, though massive editing and retooling needs to be done at this point. Still, if you're interested, you can find sneak previews (all right, and probably more than a few posts of me saying that words are stupid as I attempt to do this whole writing thing) at my tumblr: aenariasbookshelf.tumblr.com. Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> The second and final part should be posted in a few days time. Thanks for reading!


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